A Conversation for Chicken Stock
Soup!
Global Village Idiot Started conversation Jan 25, 2000
What a fine article. I've been doing pretty much this ever since I discovered that in our local Tesco's, a whole chicken is cheaper than two breast fillets. It takes a sharp knife and about 6 seconds to cut off the fillets, if you're feeling energetic you can remove the other meaty bits, mostly the legs, and do something fun with them (chicken curry would be my suggestion).
Everything else goes into the pot with water and veg - I like to add a bay leaf or two and a few peppercorns, and thyme's good too - and simmer for about three hours. Almost no effort, wonderful stock.
The next task - and this one is messy - is to get all the pieces of succulent meat off the carcass and give your cat or dog a treat. They will love you forever.
Now you have the stock, you're in the perfect position to make soup.
Add carrots, cabbage leaves, leek, onion and a potato for a lovely thick vegetable soup about 1000 times better than anything which ever came out of a can.
Add chinese egg noodles for the best possible cure for a cold.
Or, if you don't like soup:
Boil up a pint of stock in one pan
Melt some butter in another
Put a cup of rice in the butter pan and coat every grain.
Take a ladleful of hot stock and pour it on the rice. Once it's absorbed, do it again, and then again...
After 10 minutes or half the stock, add some mushrooms (porcini are best, but any will do).
After another 10 minutes or so, you have a delicious risotto if you want a richer dish, stir in some shavings of parmigiano reggiano (that's parmesan to you - but NOT the pre-grated stuff!) before serving.
Mmmm. Now I'm hungry.
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